16 
reconstruct the history of man in primitive times from tlie remnants 
of his previous existence which have been gathered in this iuslitutiou. 
For example, what an effect would be produci^d on thousands of 
the inhabitants of this vast citj' if it were announced tliat an Agassiz, 
filled with enthusiastic sympathy with his subject and his audience, 
and capable of mingling moral considerations with scientific principles, 
of directing attention from nature to nature's God, of not oriTy en- 
lightening the heads, but of warming the hearts of bis audience, -were 
to give free courses of instruction. 
Such an announcement would be hailed with intense interfet^bjr 
thousands, and the amphitheater of the museum would be crowded to 
overflowing with receptive and admiring auditors. I need only sug- 
gest such an arrangement to find, I doubt not, an appreciation of ita 
importance in every one of ray hearers, and the hope felt or expressed 
that the directors of this establishment will endeavor to provide an 
endowment for the support of such a feature of the mu.seum. But I 
have not yet done. The developmcmt of the institution would not yet 
be complete were it oven furnished with all (he appliances I have 
mentioned. There is still another duty which this city owes to itself 
and to the civilized world; I allude to an endowment for the support 
of a college of discoverers, of a series of men capable not only of ex- 
pounding established truths but of interrogating tiatui e and of discov- 
ering new facts, new phenomena, and new principles. The blindness 
of the public to the value of abstract science and to the importance of 
endowments for its advancement is truly remarkable. No countrr in 
the world IS so much indebted for its progress in power and inteUigence 
to science than ours, and yet no countiy does so little to encourage or 
advance it. Nearly all that is done in this line, is by professors in col- 
eges, badly paid, and generally overworked. It is not every one, 
however well educated, that is capable of becoming a first-class scien- 
tist; hke the poet, the discoverer is born, not n,ade, and when one of 
tins class has been found he .should be cherished, liberally provided 
with the means of subsistence, fully supplied with all fie implemenU 
of mvestigation, and his life consecrated to the high and holv office of 
penetratmg the mysteries of nature. What has been achie;ed in the 
knowledge of the forces and operations of nature and the use to which 
this knowledge, has been applied in controlling and directing these 
forces to useful purposes, constitutes the highest claim to glory of our 
